Silicon Valley’s Bloom Energy files for IPO after four years

Bloom Energy was reported to have filed for a confidential IPO in 2016 but put those plans on hold.

NEW DELHI: An initial public offering that’s been in the works for more than four years, may actually take place next month, after Silicon Valley-based Bloom Energy filed its prospectus to go public with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

Long considered one of the Valley’s “It companies”, having raised an estimated $2.5 billion in equity and debt financing from some of Menlo Park’s biggest residents, Bloom Energy’s decision to go to Wall Street will also once again shine a spotlight on its founder —Indian-born KR Sridhar.

Sridhar had emerged as a darling of risk capital in the last decade as marquee investors, such as Kleiner Perkins Caulfied and Byers and New Enterprise Associates, among others, rushed to back clean energy ventures. Prior to starting Bloom Energy, Sridhar, 58, shot to fame during his time at the University of Arizona, where he was the director of the Space Technology Laboratory and played a key role in NASA’s Mars programme. In fact, the idea of Bloom Energy is believed to have germinated while working at America’s space agency on converting Martian atmospheric gases to oxygen for propulsion and life support.

In 2016, Bloom Energy signed an MoU with GAIL, the state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company, to deploy natural gas-based fuel cell technology to generate electricity. However, the latest filing isn’t the first time the California-based company has filed to go public. In fact, in its latest S-1 statement filed with the US SEC, the company has not disclosed how much it expects to raise from the IPO, or the number of shares it plans to sell.

Bloom Energy was reported to have filed for a confidential IPO in 2016 but put those plans on hold. It is understood that the decision to go public by the 15-year-old company, which was last valued at $2.9 billion in 2009, was also driven by the Trump administration’s announcement to restore tax credits that will allow the company to sell its units at a far greater mark-up. Bloom boxes, Bloom Energy’s solid oxide fuel cell power generator, provides 100 kilowatts of electricity —enough to power 100 average US homes, with the average life of its fuel cells was now expected to be over five years, compared to 12-18 months in the early days.

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